Conflict of interest found for UC provost / Despite violations, she got paid leave and offer of new job

Tanya Schevitz, Todd Wallack, Chronicle Staff Writers

Published
4:00 am PST, Thursday, December 22, 2005

M.R.C. Greenwood M.R.C. Greenwood, a former Clinton adviser, will receive a $380,000 salary. M.R.C. Greenwood, a former Clinton adviser, will receive a $380,000 salary. Ran on: 09-20-2005
UC President Robert Dynes' salary is $395,000. UC wants to seek donations to cover $45,000 of that. less

M.R.C. Greenwood M.R.C. Greenwood, a former Clinton adviser, will receive a $380,000 salary. M.R.C. Greenwood, a former Clinton adviser, will receive a $380,000 salary. Ran on: 09-20-2005
UC President Robert ... more

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M.R.C. Greenwood M.R.C. Greenwood, a former Clinton adviser, will receive a $380,000 salary. M.R.C. Greenwood, a former Clinton adviser, will receive a $380,000 salary. Ran on: 09-20-2005
UC President Robert Dynes' salary is $395,000. UC wants to seek donations to cover $45,000 of that. less

M.R.C. Greenwood M.R.C. Greenwood, a former Clinton adviser, will receive a $380,000 salary. M.R.C. Greenwood, a former Clinton adviser, will receive a $380,000 salary. Ran on: 09-20-2005
UC President Robert ... more

Photo: H.o.

Conflict of interest found for UC provost / Despite violations, she got paid leave and offer of new job

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The University of California's former No. 2 official, who resigned under a cloud last month, violated conflict-of-interest rules by helping to create a management job for a friend with whom she owned rental property, a UC investigation concluded Wednesday.

In addition, UC investigators found that a subordinate for the former official, ex-Provost M.R.C. Greenwood, had improperly helped create an internship for Greenwood's son, though they couldn't find evidence he had done so at Greenwood's direction.

The subordinate, university Vice President Winston Doby, 65, remains on administrative leave while UC auditors look into two other hires in which he was involved.

UC said it started the investigation after The Chronicle asked about Greenwood's role in the hiring of two people: her friend and business partner, Lynda Goff, for a job at UC's headquarters, and Greenwood's son, James Greenwood, for a midcareer internship at UC Merced.

But UC won't take any action against Greenwood, 62, as a result of the investigation. In fact, a separation agreement that Greenwood and UC agreed to in November, a month before the investigation was completed, grants the former No. 2 official a 15-month leave at $301,840 a year. The money is a combination of the salary she earned as provost and in her previous job as UC Santa Cruz chancellor.

UC also promised Greenwood the right to return after her leave to UC Davis, where she worked years earlier, as a tenured professor of nutrition and internal medicine earning $163,800. In addition, UC agreed to give her $100,000 in research funding.

UC spokesman Paul Schwartz said the harshest sanction university President Robert Dynes could have levied against Greenwood was to remove her as provost, "which had already occurred by virtue of her resignation. Had the investigation surfaced any significant additional facts that warranted consideration of additional sanctions upon her as a faculty member, Dynes would have referred the matter to the Academic Senate. No such facts were surfaced."

Sheldon Steinbach, vice president and general counsel with the American Council on Education in Washington, D.C., said it was "highly unusual" for the university not to have waited until the investigation was complete before deciding the terms of Greenwood's departure.

"This would seem indeed peculiar when you have mounting evidence of potential violations of university regulations to conclude a settlement prior to a determination of a full investigation," Steinbach said. "It seems at variance with common practice."

In addition, UC told The Chronicle on Dec. 5 that it would not release a copy of the agreement with Greenwood because the deal was in draft form. But the agreement that the university released Wednesday shows that it was signed by Greenwood and university counsel James Holst on Nov. 23.

"It's unbelievable," said Karl Olson, a San Francisco attorney who has represented The Chronicle and other media in public records suits. "A final agreement is not a draft."

UC spokesman Michael Reese said work on the document was completed Nov. 23, but that the document was still in the hands of the university's attorneys Dec. 5.

The latest revelations come on the heels of reports in The Chronicle that UC gave employees hundreds of millions of dollars in hidden pay and perks in addition to salaries and overtime. The state Legislature, which oversees a significant portion of UC's funding, is planning to hold hearings early next year into the university's compensation practices.

In the report released Wednesday, UC's general counsel said Greenwood should have recused herself from helping to promote Goff, 56, a UC Santa Cruz administrator who owned rental property with Greenwood in Davis.

Two months after Greenwood started as provost in April 2004, she hired Goff as an executive faculty associate. Then in August 2004, she hired Goff for a yearlong position in academic affairs with a $192,100 salary, a $44,300 raise from her pay at Santa Cruz.

In addition, the offer included a faculty relocation allowance of $50,000 and a low-interest housing loan if Goff were to take a permanent appointment in UC's academic affairs office. She eventually did so.

This past August, Greenwood offered Goff a permanent position as director of UC's new Science and Math Initiative, reporting to her. Goff took the job.

"Given their business relationship, Dr. Greenwood should not have participated in any way in decisions respecting Dr. Goff's employment," the UC report said.

Greenwood told UC investigators that she had tried to avoid a conflict by dissolving her business partnership with Goff effective Sept. 1, 2004, when Goff began her one-year appointment. However, the report said Greenwood "participated in decisions concerning the terms of Goff's appointment prior to that time."

In addition, the report said Greenwood failed to transfer her ownership stake in a property to Goff by August 2005, when Goff started her permanent position working directly for Greenwood.

"I regret that I made an unfortunate and inadvertent mistake in how I handled the dissolution of that partnership in my efforts to avoid running afoul of UC's conflicts policy," Greenwood said in a statement. "As the university states in its findings, I honestly believed I had taken the necessary steps to dissolve the real estate partnership in keeping with the UC conflicts policy."

Also Wednesday, UC said it had determined that Doby, the university's vice president for student affairs who reported to Greenwood, had inappropriately provided funding from his office to create an internship at UC Merced specifically for Greenwood's son, James Greenwood, who turned 43 last month.

James Greenwood, who has a background in youth ministry, previously applied for three student affairs positions at UC Merced and UC Davis, using contacts provided by his mother. He did not make it to the interview round for any of the jobs, UC's auditor said in the report released Wednesday.

On his resume, Greenwood listed Goff and two UC Davis professors as references. Public records show that one of the professors owned property with Greenwood's mother, and the other professor had worked with her.

After James Greenwood's unsuccessful search for a job, Doby asked UC Merced Vice Chancellor Jane Lawrence this past July whether she would create an internship for him if the campus had the funding.

A day or two later, Doby informed UC Merced that his office would provide funding for an internship position for Greenwood, the report said. Greenwood was then hired as the only candidate for the $45,000-a-year internship.

Doby has denied any wrongdoing and told investigators that his actions were consistent with his history of providing assistance to people -- and were not a favor for his boss.

"He asserts that he believes he would have acted similarly had James Greenwood not been the son of the provost," the UC report said.

However, the report concludes: "The failure to recognize the sensitivity of this hiring, and to have his actions guided by an abundance of caution due to that sensitivity, represent a significant error in judgment."

The report said UC was looking into two other hires in which Doby was involved. It gave no further details.